Cook’s Kitchen – Storm Hands V

It’s been about a month since the last Storm Hands! But we’re back! In this installment we’re going to focus on beating a rough match-up, UWr Miracles. The match-up is very difficult because of Counterbalance, Force of Will, Rest in Peace and sometimes Terminus but it’s not unwinnable. Each one of these cards can shut down one of the EPIC Storm’s strategies. The goal of this battle is to make them have the wrong answer at the right time.

Cards like Counterbalance are generally effective throughout the game, unless there’s an Abrupt Decay present. While cards such as Force of Will, Rest in Peace and Terminus are only effective in certain situations at stopping the storm. For example, a second turn Rest in Peace is only good at shutting down Ill-Gotten Gains (A card traditionally not cast in this match-up), Past in Flames and stopping the additional mana clause from Rite of Flame. A second turn Rest in Peace may mean a second turn win. Similarly, Terminus can be a completely dead card like Rest in Peace if both players have known information to its existence in the opponents’ hand. It can also, make a storm pilot lose the game if they’re reckless or if luck isn’t on their side.

Before we dive into the games let’s talk about some of the strategies you’ll want to keep in mind in order to defeat one of T.E.S.’s more challenging match-ups. First off, it’s all right to keep slower hands! If it doesn’t win on turn one or two, that’s fine. Turn one wins with or without protection are great too. But this is a match-up where it’s all right to aim to win on turns three or four if you can disrupt them and protect yourself. Hands with Duress or Cabal Therapy hold additional value as they proactively answer Counterbalance. Post-board the same thing can be said about Abrupt Decay.

I also recommend steering away from Empty the Warrens, Miracles has a fairly easy time maneuvering around ten to fourteen goblins. Between possible Terminus, Supreme Verdict, Detention Sphere and Engineered Explosives it’s just not in our best interest to be creating tokens. I’d also be wary of being too obvious of setting up the Past in Flames kill, playing Infernal Tutor revealing Dark Ritual for example. However, a play like this could also be used as bait to get them to tap some mana on their turn

Post board is actually better for us! There aren’t too many match-ups where this is true. Game one generally belongs to the players casting ten or twenty spells in one turn, however, most of the time sideboarded games are slightly worse. This doesn’t mean that T.E.S. isn’t favored, it’s just that in most players’ sideboards there’s a card dedicated to shutting us down. Well against Miracles we have three copies of a card that nullifies their primary game plan for shutting down the storm. It’s fairly obvious that I’m talking about Abrupt Decay! Decay being able to answer Counterbalance or Ethersworn Cannonist is a real game changer. Enough talking for now, let’s take a look at the deck list!

This is my most current list of The EPIC Storm. The list hasn’t changed since my attendance at Star City Games last weekend. It’s pretty straightforward at this point, let’s move on to the Storm hands!

This Probe did two things. First off, it dramatically increased our chances of being able to win the game quickly. However, it also showed that our Miracles opponent is also very good at drawing cards.

We have a couple of options. Brainstorm right now and hope to find either Infernal Tutor plus more mana or a gold land to “Silence-Walk”. Alternately we can just say, “go.”

They untap, motion for their draw but not before we cast Silence (15 life)
They lay the basic Island we know about and pass

Untap and peel the top card of our Library. It’s a second Dark Ritual!

Not a bad draw!

Time to evaluate again. We could attempt to Silence-Walk again, but at this point we’re cold to Force of Will if we attempt to combo again soon. I say we get some more information by casting Brainstorm.
Tap City of Brass (14 life) and cast Brainstorm (Storm 1)
Draw Duress, Underground Sea and Ponder

We can blind attempt to win off Ponder or be practical. My vote goes towards some rationality. Put Dark Ritual on top of the Library and then Ponder on top of it. This allows us to have the land for Duress AND the Lotus Petal for Silence if Miracles plays Force of Will on our Duress.

If top looks at either a land, Counterbalance or Force of Will we’re in a tough spot. Miracles has seen roughly a quarter of their deck. The odds are there’s a Force of Will in there. However, the odds are even greater for a land or a Counterbalance. There’s also Empty the Warrens, but a Brainstorm ends our game as well in this situation. Although, if we’re going for Goblins we do have Silence back-up. Let’s push all of our chips toward the center of the table. All in.

Our options are to Silence-Walk and draw into Scalding Tarn, which doesn’t really improve our position. It just makes us down two cards or we can cast Burning Wish this turn for either Diminishing Returns or Empty the Warrens. I know I said Goblins generally aren’t a good idea, but neither is refilling the opponents’ hand when you’ve already played a land and they run Force of Will. I think the highest chance of success is with Goblins.

Before we begin the sideboarded games, let’s talk strategy again. Sideboarding out Empty the Warrens is a good idea because it will leave Miracles with additional “dead” cards in Terminus or Supreme Verdict or other cards of that nature. The Ponder, Infernal Tutor and Chrome Mox are all because the games slow down. There’s an additional benefit to siding out Infernal Tutor. It can now be a Burning Wish target. Meaning that Burning Wish can now find Ad Nauseam! The game plan is currently:

Once again Miracles begins the game with a first turn Sensei’s Diving Top off of Tundra.

Draw Rite of Flame for turn

Gemstone Mine and Lotus Petal (Storm 1)

This ensures that our Petal resolves if there is a Counterbalance. It’s important because we want to keep our shuffle effect for Brainstorm.

Pass

Flooded Strand (19 life) for Volcanic Island and Counterbalance

You’re probably thinking, why didn’t we just play Cabal Therapy? If we did and named Counterbalance and hit that’s great! Then we’re left with a dead Abrupt Decay. I think it’s best to save Decay for the annoyance and use Therapy to take down actual counter magic once we have some more information.

We’re not in a position to win the game, I’d rather not use Lotus Petal to destroy Counterbalance yet.

Draw Dark Ritual
Lay Scalding Tarn and pass

Miracles draws, lays down a Scalding Tarn and taps it’s lands to cast Rest in Peace

Very anxiously the Miracles player reveals the top card of their library and it’s a Terminus. While the Miracles player may have breezed through their upkeep, you can still cast Silence in response to the Miracle trigger to stop it.